Prevención y seguridad en programas turísticos

The correlation coefficients given in Table 8 show that the incidence of educational deprivation has negative and statistically significant correlation with urbanisation, literacy levels, irrigation level, proportion of workers participating in services sector and per capital value of agriculture production. And it has a positive correlation with work participation rate (WPR) especially females and proportion of workers in agriculture. It shows the coincidence of higher work participation rate and higher incidence of educational deprivation across the districts in Andhra Pradesh. In fact it is true that the Andhra Pradesh is one among the Indian states having a higher WPR and incidence of deprivation.

Interestingly, infrastructure50 _{index is negatively correlated with} educational deprivation of children. It can be seen in the light of its impact on economic and social opportunities of the people. Firstly, economic infrastructure like irrigation, transportation etc., enhances the people’s levels of living by increasing employment opportunities and income levels. Hence the affordability of the schooling also increases. Secondly, infrastructure facilities enhance the communications thereby interactions among people. Thirdly, it facilitates the spread of markets. Fourthly, social infrastructure enhances the access to public services especially educational and health which have positive impact on social opportunities. Among these, second and third implies that the infrastructure facilitates in realising the value of education and fourth indicates the easy access to schooling. In fact the decision to send the

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child to school depends upon the perceived value of education. Therefore, better infrastructure facilities are having positive influence on schooling by raising parents’ awareness/motivation along with their affordability. Table 8: Correlation Between the incidence of Child Deprivation in and Other Economic Indicators Across Districts: Andhra Pradesh

Socio-Economic Indicators r Sig. Sign R2

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Urbanisation -0.66 1% - 0.44

2 Literacy Levels -0.89 1% - 0.79

3 Gross Irrigated Area -0.59 1% - 0.35

4 % of Agricultural Workers 0.66 1% + 0.44 5 % of Service Sector Workers -0.71 1% - 0.50 6 Work Participation Rate (WPR) 0.67 1% + 0.45

7 WPR of Female 0.71 1% + 0.50

8 Per Capital Value of Agriculture

Production _{0.73 1% - 0.53}

9 Infrastructure Index 0.62 1% - 0.38

Note: 1. For all indicators data is related for the years 1990 or 1991 except Per Capital Value of Agriculture Production - this indicator refers to 1981 an1d it is correlated with same year’s deprivation index of rural children; 2. Gross Irrigated Area is to Gross Cropped Area; 3. r - Correlation Co-efficient; 4. Sig - Significance Level.

Source: Census of India 1991, CMIE 2000. B. Implications

a. Parents’ Perceptions on Value of Education: Role of Literacy and Infrastructure

It is observed that household literacy levels have great influence on child schooling (see Buragohain, 1997). It is evident from our analysis

that the incidence of educational deprivation of children is the highest for children belonging to households with all illiterate adults. Also, infrastructure index is negatively and significantly correlated with the incidence levels across districts. The bearings of illiteracy and inadequate infrastructure facilities on educational deprivation can be seen in the following way. As we mentioned above, the decision to send the child to school involves the parents’ willingness and affordability. The former arises out of motivation which in turn depends upon the perceived (realised) value of education. The parents’ perceptions are influenced by the information on positive value of education51 _{and negative value} of child work. The capacity of decoding the information at their disposal is better for literate people in comparison to the illiterate ones. The infrastructure facilities52 _{(like communication, transportation etc.) are} the mechanisms to spread effectively the information about the value of education. These also facilitate the spread of markets. All this enhances peoples’ interactions and exchange of views thereby information spread. b. Primacy of Agrarian Economy: Structure, Relations and Growth

There is evidence to say that the agrarian regimes with respect to structure, relations and growth pattern in an agrarian economy, have an influence on increasing demand for child schooling. Historical experiences (during the pre-independence period) in the context of Andhra and Kerala53_{, have shown that, among other things}54 _{the improved} conditions in agrarian economy had a positive impact on educational development. In coastal Andhra (especially southern districts), the agricultural prosperity was witnessed along with educational development whereas in Telangana it coincided with a backward agrarian economy.

In the post-independent and post-state formation period, too, educational development in the regions of Andhra Pradesh has a coincidence with its agricultural development. Telangana’s agrarian

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economy, for instance, witnessed significant change in terms of its structure, relations and growth especially since 1970s, and it is a watershed point where the dynamism was infused in the agrarian economy of the region. Better agrarian relations55 _{were established via} state and people’s action56_{. Though the region lags behind in terms of} levels (see Venkatanarayana and Jain, 2004), the growth57 _{rate of} agriculture is at par with or even higher than the developed region (south coastal Andhra) in the state (see Subramanyam, 2002; Vakulabharanam, 2004). One may see the educational development of the region in light of these facts. The declining rate of change in educational deprivation was the highest in the districts of this region especially Karimnagar58_. However, in the region as well as in the state the district of Mahabubnagar remains the most backward not only on agricultural fronts but also in terms of educational attainments. Similarly, the slow down in educational development of coastal Andhra may be seen in the light of its changing agrarian structure: increasing casualisation of agricultural labour, marginalisation of peasantry and the slow growth in real wages of agricultural labourers.

Therefore, in the light of above analysis, we may put forward a case for improving the agrarian conditions59 _{like land reforms,} modernisation of agriculture, shifting60 _{agricultural labour to non-} agricultural occupation especially the service sector and the provision of infrastructure facilities like irrigation as all these factors influence child schooling. In this context, it is worth mentioning that Vietnam managed to produce rice at large scale and could raise its agricultural exports along with significantly reducing child labour and thereby improving child schooling.

c. A Policy of Urban Bias in Development Effort

One of the emerging aspect of our analysis is as following. The problem of educational deprivation of children is a rural phenomenon

closely associated with agrarian economy. In addition, the incidence levels across districts are significantly correlated with infrastructure index. The negative relationship between urbanisation and the incidence level of educational deprivation of children can be seen in the light of urban area’s advantage in better infrastructure facilities. It clearly indicates the locational disadvantage of rural children. In this context, one may see the educational deprivation of rural children not in isolation but in the light of generalised deprivation of people living in rural areas. It is observed that there is a close association between the generalised deprivation61 _{with respect to the capabilities in rural population and} educational deprivation of children in rural area (Jayaraj and Subramanian, 2002). In the welfare state context, it implies that there exists policy bias against people living in rural area in terms of improving infrastructure facilities and rural people’s standard of living thereby well- being of rural children. Interestingly, these observations are reflecting the Michael Lipton’s theory of ‘urban bias’ (see Lipton, 1968 and 1977). According to Lipton (1977), rural areas and agriculture which holds large number of population, are consistently neglected62 _{in the} development effort.

d. Role of Supply Factors: Access to and Quality of Schooling In addition to the demand factors, the supply of schooling also influences child schooling through two ways. One, through meeting the manifested demand (parents who are aware of the value of education, can afford and interested sending their children to school) for schooling and second, by translating the latent demand (who can afford but not aware of or interested in their children’s schooling) into the manifested one. The former case is made possible through easy access (physical, economic and social) to school that may ensure the enrolment of children. But it is the quality of schooling that matters in retaining them in schools as either inadequate access or poor quality of schooling or both together

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may have a discouragement effect on the manifested demand. The second case of translating the latent demand into the manifested one needs pro- active initiatives of educational service providers to motivate and persuade63 _{parents of school-age children which reminds us that the} supply has the characteristics of creating/increasing the demand64_. IX. Conclusion

In this paper an attempt has been made to examine the problem of out of school children who are in fact referred to as educationally deprived children. This broad view includes both child labourers and the no-where children in our analysis. It may be justified in the perspectives of human capital, human development and human rights. The analysis is carried on in the context of Andhra Pradesh, a South Indian state. It presents the magnitude of the problem, its trends and changing composition over the period, and its dispersion across sub-population groups distinguished with socio-economic characteristics and districts/regions. The household characteristics of educationally deprived children are presented and then an attempt is made to link the phenomenon with rural and agrarian economy. We also discussed the availability, access and quality which represents supply side aspects of the schooling. Finally, we’ve explored the degree of association between the incidence levels and selected set of socio-economic factors having a bearing on child schooling across districts.

It is clear from the analysis that there was a declining trend in the incidence of educational deprivation of children in Andhra Pradesh but it was still at an alarming level in 1991. However there was a dramatic change during the 1990s when the state average remained below the national average. Earlier it was always found to be above the national average. There were disparities associated with the sub-population groups distinguished by their spatial and social group characteristics (in terms

of location, gender and caste). Both at the macro (i.e. state) level and across districts there was relative disadvantage for the children living in rural areas, females by gender and belong to SC/ST social group. But the location effect dominates the gender and caste effects. Alarmingly, the relative disadvantage of children belonging to SC and ST social group especially latter one is increasing. The variation (CV) across districts showed a substantial spatial inequality and the variation is increasing over the period 1961-01. The leaders and laggards in terms of educational development during the pre-independence or pre-state formation retained their relative position in early phases of post-state formation period but changes were evident by the year 1991. A few districts from the backward regions have performed better and they have been catching up with the positions of the districts in developed region and even forging ahead. The progress of schooling in the developed districts has slowed down. Nevertheless, the regional averages showing the historical legacy of educational development/backwardness still continues. It is also observed that the phenomenon of child deprivation has remained closely associated with rural and agrarian economy.

As regards to supply factors, they have potential capacity to increase the demand provided service delivery (ensuring access with quality to all children) is made properly. In Andhra Pradesh it seems the physical access to school is not a serious problem in the state and the state’s performance is better than the national average. Within the state there was a little variation across districts in terms of access to schooling especially for primary education and this variation is correlated at negligible level with the variation in incidence levels of educational deprivation of children. Even in case of middle schools65_{, the access,} say 3km as a walkable distance, is at a satisfactory level66_{. However,} still more to do with respect to physical access. Another problem related to schooling is the quality of education67 _{provided in the schools}

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especially the public ones. It includes many aspects unobservable in terms of quantification. The quality of schooling affects not only parents’ motivation to send or continue the child schooling but also child to enter or retain in school. Our preliminary understanding indicates that the quality of (public) schooling is not at satisfactory level so that it is acting as discouragement effect on demand for schooling. However, it is beyond the scope of present paper to elaborate the discussion further on this phenomenon.

M. Venkatanarayana is Doctoral Scholar at the